Redmond Rewrite Time?

I think that Microsoft - Microsoft no less - is going to rewrite.

In her blog All About Microsoft, Mary-Jo Foley writes about "Midori", the code name for a new microkernel-based operating system, itself the offshoot of a project called "Singularity". Singularity is the Microsoft project that studies what a future, non-Windows based operating system might look like.

Microsoft notes that the Singularity project is strictly research-oriented, with no plans for commercialization. But Foley speculates that Midori might someday find the light of day, based on the level of talent and resources Microsoft is applying to the project.

What struck me the most about her article was the mission statement excerpt she quoted from the Singularity team, itself lifted from here. I've copied some of it below, with my emphasis added:

·                                 “The Singularity project started in 2003 to re-examine the design decisions and increasingly obvious shortcomings of existing systems and software stacks. These shortcomings include: widespread security vulnerabilities; unexpected interactions among applications; failures caused by errant extensions, plug-ins, and drivers, and a perceived lack of robustness. We believe thatmany of these problems are attributable to systems that have not evolved far beyond the computer architectures and programming languages of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The computing environment of that period was very different from today…."

The bold type above reminded me greatly of something that I wrote in the forward of our RPMS Version 7 User's Guide, back in December of 2001.

·                                 "Without a major rewrite of our software, we found that could not focus on our core purpose. Our growth was limited by support issues, our sales were limited by packaging and pricing issues, and our creativity was limited by a file structure designed for the 1980s."

I was trying to describe our decision to completely change the RPMS software from the architecture that served for Versions 1 through 6 to the new design in Version 7. I don't know that I fully captured it, but it seemed in those days that every single thing we tried to add to Version 6 was next to impossible.

Over and over, some new challenge we encountered had to do with inherent system design problems. Software designs that had been strengths for the mini-based service business and more strictly limited DOS operating systems became impediments. Memory and disk space were no longer dear, and there was no longer any reason to treat them as such at the expense of usability.

This growing frustration with the then current version of RPMS led to a meeting of the minds that took place in August of 1999. Murray Nolte, a long-time programmer for RPMS, Steve Goold, our most senior technical support specialist, and I all sat down together to make a list. In crass and probably typical form, I titled the list 10 Things that Suck About RPMS. After the meeting was over, I re-titled the list 15 Things that Suck About RPMS. (Looking back through the archives, I see that some politically correct marketing-type person has subsequently revised it and added sales-specific problems to it, so that in early 2000 it was re-titled 20 Difficult Issues with the RPMS Software Product. Which is what I meant of course, but nobody else has a sense of humor.)

Anyway, it was pretty clear to me that we needed to rewrite our product. And you really never, never want to do that. See this advice, then look at this advice, and if you're still not convinced that a rewrite is a bad idea, consider this. Bottom line - nobody recommends the rewrite pathway very much.

All that being said, all the money we spent, and all the pain we (and our customers!) went through, I guess I'd have to say that I'd do it again. Just better.

Because all through 1999 and 2000 we were selling so many rep software systems that it seemed as though the sky was the limit. Then along came January 2001, and it was, as Brent famously said, "like somebody turned out the light". The rep industry was simply battered by recession, imports, the Internet, 9/11 and more. In our view, it has never recovered in terms of number of agencies. Reps overall probably still do the volume they did in the twentieth century, or in many cases more - they're just paid less, and there are fewer rep firms.

The V7 rewrite turned out to be critical for us, because today we support a still very large installed base with a very small company. That never could have happened with the previous generation of software architecture. We would have died.

Which leads me back to Microsoft, and the cause of this post. I think they're going to rewrite. Microsoft today is still the fattest of cats - marketing and sales are pretty fine. But the tech types there are not indifferent to all the things that suck about Microsoft operating systems. They want to be the coolest. They want the kids to like them better than Apple. They want the IT types to like them better than Linux. I bet they have a really long list of Difficult Issues.

So when they rewrite this time, it will be an enormously different product that comes out. And if they have the guts to release it and to push it, everybody that wants to sell for this Microsoft OS will have to rewrite their software, or at the very least hope that their cross-platform application is what it claims.

Yesterday I bought my daughter a Linux operating system laptop (about $300 from Amazon) to take to college this fall. She'll use it (I hope) for taking notes in class, E-Mail, and wireless Internet. She's taking her Mac desktop to use in the dorm. When Microsoft's new, rewritten operating system appears in five years or more, they will find a vastly different audience than exists even today. It will be very, very interesting to see whether they can move the market one more time.

Acer Monitor

I found a deal on a 24 inch Acer monitor two years and four months ago. Back in December of 2005, a monitor that size would set you back over $1,000. But I found a great buy at my local MicroCenterfor $799, before a $100 rebate.

Two years later, when the price for the same monitor was down to about $499 net, I bought a second one for home. Nowadays Samsung makes a 24 inch that you can pick up for $429 or less.

The great thing about a monitor like this is the number of windows you can see at once. For example, as I write this, I'm watching the Royals and Red Sox in my Slingbox window. At higher resolutions I can get work done in three or four different windows, if it helps - and sometimes it does, especially when debugging, or looking at two data files and a code window at once.

The not so great thing about a screen like this is spoilage. As in, now, I am spoiled. And early this month when my monitor at the office turned on for just one second, then stubbornly refused to re-display, I was very out of sorts. I have two computers there that share the monitor, so I first had to determine if my KVM switch was ok - it was - and then confirm that the monitor wouldn't display on any other computer - it would not.

So at that point I figured that my piddling one year warranty was well expired, and since I nearly never buy the extended warranties, I would now be in need of a new monitor. But just on the off chance that the warranty was better than I imagined, I looked on-line atAcer.com. I was mildly surprised to see that the 2008 version of my monitor carried a three year warranty. So then I went searching for the receipt, found it, and discovered that verily, my monitor was only a toddler - not quite three years old even.

That never happens. My stuff always breaks just after the warranty expires, never just before. I was almost giddy, under the circumstances, as I picked up the monitor, trotted it down to my car and thence over to MicroCenter, receipt in hand, where finally things ran more true to form. Microcenter doesn't handle warranty claims for Acer.

Oh.

I acted disgruntled, as though I would never shop there again, and the sales clerk acted sorry, like she was really, really sorry. We were both acting. Nevertheless, I carried on and carried my twenty-pound monitor back to my car, drove it back to my office, and used the standby seventeen inch monitor to look up Acer tech support.

The first thing I had to do was register my product. Evidently that had slipped my mind in December of ought-five. Acer wanted to know my purchase date and serial number. I dutifully supplied them, andvoila, I was qualified and warranted via E-Mail. On fixmyacer.com, I described my problem in great detail ("My monitor won't turn on") and promised to ship it to them. They promised to send it back, but not in the original box. I'm not sure why they go to great lengths to explain that you will not receive your monitor back in its original box, but I was not especially attached to that box, lovely cardboard though it was.

On May 6th UPS collected my boxed monitor at their local terminal, and for $29 promised to ship it ground to Round Rock, Texas. Acer received my monitor on May 9th, which is pretty solid speed by UPS ground. A gentleman named Ruiz signed for my monitor at the Acer repair center in Texas.

The following Monday, May 12th, I put in an inquiry to Acer Tech support, to get a status report. There was no phone number to call, nor could I find one on-line. However, an E-Mail was returned to me that evening, informing me that not only had my monitor been fixed, but it had also been shipped back out to me on May 9th. A quick check of the FedEx tracking number revealed that my monitor had begun the journey back to me at 1:07 p.m. the very day they had received it in Round Rock.

Wow again. Way to go Ruiz. And everybody else at Acer.

On the 13th FedEx delivered my monitor back to me, complete with a note about what Acer had fixed (I'm not sure what an inverter is, but now I have a new one) and that the repair was warranted for another 90 days, or the balance of my original warranty, whichever was greater.

So I was back in business, the monitor working good as new, and Acer with high marks from me for following through on their warranty, great turn-around speed and a still a really good product.